socialnetworking « Tama Leaver dot Net

19Apr/10

Digital Culture Links: April 19th 2010

Links for April 19th 2010:

Why the Library of Congress cares about archiving our tweets [Ars Technica] - Interesting look at the motivations behind the US Library of Congress twitter archive - and their perspective on how Twitter has changed communication - and why Facebook hasn't. Some of the challenges the Library of Congress archive will face are important issues for researchers, including dealing with shortened urls through third parties such as bit.ly and tinyurl; and whether or not to archive photos on twitter specific photos (eg twitpic) - this one seems unlikely.
Twitter Chirp Conference - Videos [Justin.tv ] - A video archive of Twitter's first official conference - Chirp - in April 2010.
Facebook Ads Will Use Your Web History [Mashable] - "Facebook will soon use your activity on other web pages to target ads based on your interests, Financial Times reports. That’s potentially a big boon for advertisers, but it won’t sit well with privacy advocates. Note that Facebook already targets ads using information from your profile, and this new system will not track all of your browsing. Rather, Facebook will offer sharing buttons to interested websites. Readers will be able to click on them to share the links with their Facebook friends via Facebook Connect [...] Once the user shares a link with his friends, Facebook will assume that person shared it because he or she liked it, so the company will include content from that web page in the data it uses to target ads based on user interest. The ads will appear whenever the user visits the Facebook website."
Internet dating [SMH] - "Australians are changing the way they date and mate, a survey shows. A Nielsen poll found one in four adults have used the internet to find a partner and another 38 per cent are considering using online dating. The other 37 per cent – many presumably in relationships – said they would never go online to meet someone. Of those who had used online dating, 33.6 per cent reported a short-term relationship, 16.2 per cent said they had a long-term relationship, 8.9 per cent said they had married or were in a defacto relationship, and 2.7 per cent had children. [...] The survey shows that:
* Of those who had used online dating, 62 per cent had dated someone they met online;
* Men were slightly more likely than women to use online dating services; and
* Most of those polled (72 per cent) were seeking a serious relationship, but many were looking for friendship or just sex.
Nielsen polled 3057 people online in November and 3764 in January, with the data weighted to the general population."

Tagged as: archive, conference, dating, history, microblogging, net204, net303, relationships, research, socialnetworking, stats, video, web101, web206 No Comments

17Apr/10

Digital Culture Links: April 16th 2010

Links for April 13th 2010 through April 16th 2010:

No Free Lunch for Ning Users; Still Plenty of Bargains Elsewhere [Read Write Web] - "The social networking platform Ning announced today that it was making some substantial changes to the company. The news, coming just one month after Jason Rosenthal replaced Gina Bianchini as CEO, was sour for both employees and for many users of the service. Ning will cut 70 jobs and will end free subscriptions to the site. Rosenthal writes in the press release, "We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning." According to the release, paying subscribers account for 75% of the service's traffic. These fees have ranged from $4.95 per month to use your own domain name, to $24.95 per month to remove Ning's promotional links, although it's unclear if those fees will change. But the service has long been used by many small groups and organization, many of which are in a tail-spin over today's announcement."
Youth, Privacy and Reputation (Literature Review) - April 12, 2010 Authored by Alice E. Marwick, Diego Murgia Diaz, John Palfrey, Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative [Berkman Center] - Fantastically useful overview of youth & privacy writing & research: "The scope of this literature review is to map out what is currently understood about the intersections of youth, reputation, and privacy online, focusing on youth attitudes and practices. We summarize both key empirical studies from quantitative and qualitative perspectives and the legal issues involved in regulating privacy and reputation. This project includes studies of children, teenagers, and younger college students. For the purposes of this document, we use “teenagers” or “adolescents” to refer to young people ages 13-19; children are considered to be 0-12 years old. However, due to a lack of large-scale empirical research on this topic, and the prevalence of empirical studies on college students, we selectively included studies that discussed age or included age as a variable. Due to language issues, the majority of this literature covers the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Canada."
Murdoch hails iPad as saviour of news [The Age] - "Rupert Murdoch has launched a spirited defence of putting up paywalls around his newspaper websites, while embracing the game-changing potential of Apple's iPad. The News Corporation chairman hailed the device as a possible saviour of the newspaper industry.Advocates of free newspaper websites often accuse Murdoch of being a technophobe but the Australian media mogul was happy to embrace the technology of Apple's iPad tablet device, launched in the US on April 3. [...] During an interview with journalist Marvin Kalb, Murdoch sat with an iPad and even picked it up to demonstrate how to navigate The Wall Street Journal's website. He said the iPad could be the saviour of newspaper journalism - in electronic form, not print. ''I got a glimpse of the future … with the Apple iPad,'' Murdoch said. ''It is a wonderful thing. If you have [fewer] newspapers and more of these … it may well be the saving of the newspaper industry.''"
Internet Filter Not Needed, Says US Ambassador to Australia [The Age] - US to Australia: don't screw up the internet! "The US ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich has criticised the Rudd government's plan to filter the internet, saying the same goals can be achieved without censorship. The federal government's $128.8 million Cyber Safety policy includes forcing ISPs to block access to certain websites and blacklist offensive material. Legislation to enable the scheme is set to be introduced this year. On ABC's Q&A program last night, Mr Bleich said the "internet has to be free" and that there were other means of combating nasty content such as child pornography. "We have been able to accomplish the goals that Australia has described, which is to capture and prosecute child pornographers ... without having to use internet filters," he said. "We have other means and we are willing to share our efforts with them ... it's an ongoing conversation.""

Tagged as: apple, censorship, digitalnatives, filtering, free, ipad, journalism, murdoch, net303, ning, nocleanfeed, research, socialnetworking, socialnetworks, usa, web101, youth No Comments

12Apr/10

Digital Culture Links: April 12th 2010

Links catching up, through to April 12th 2010:

Margaret Atwood - How I learned to love Twitter [The Guardian] - Margaret Atwood's wonderful description of ending up on Twitter, and why that's a rather good thing: "The Twittersphere is an odd and uncanny place. It's something like having fairies at the bottom of your garden. How do you know anyone is who he/she says he is, especially when they put up pictures of themselves that might be their feet, or a cat, or a Mardi Gras mask, or a tin of Spam? But despite their sometimes strange appearances, I'm well pleased with my followers – I have a number of techno-geeks and bio-geeks, as well as many book fans. They're a playful but also a helpful group. If you ask them for advice, it's immediately forthcoming: thanks to them, I learned how to make a Twitpic photo appear as if by magic, and how to shorten a URL using bit.ly or tinyurl. They've sent me many interesting items pertaining to artificially-grown pig flesh, unusual slugs, and the like. (They deduce my interests.)"
The State of the Internet Operating System [O'Reilly Radar] - Tim O'Reilly takes a hard look at the 'Internet Operating System' and writes a manifesto-ish reflection-cum-future-roadmap reminiscent of his 'What is Web 2.0' work of half a decade ago.
Murdoch to limit Google, Microsoft [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] - As News Corp disappears down the paid rabbit hole, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and BBC become even more important and influential! "News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch says Google and Microsoft's access to his newspapers could be limited to a "headline or a sentence or two" once he erects a pay wall around his titles' websites. Mr Murdoch, in an interview with journalist Marvin Kalb for The Kalb Report, said he believed most US newspapers would eventually end up charging readers online, like he does with The Wall Street Journal and plans to do with his other properties, beginning with The Times of London. "You'll find, I think, most newspapers in this country are going to be putting up a pay wall," he said. "Now how high does it go? Does it allow [visitors] to have the first couple of paragraphs or certain feature articles? We'll see. We're experimenting with it ourselves.""
David's laughing after dentist [The Age] - "Fifteen months ago, David DeVore's business was Orlando real estate. Now his business is his son, David. His six-figure business. By now you may have seen last year's video ''David after dentist'' 10 or 12 times and memorised the dialogue of David, then seven and fresh from a tooth removal, displaying the woozy effects of painkillers. ''I have two fingers,'' he tells his father. ''You have four eyes.'' Then, displaying the wisdom of stoners everywhere, David goes deep. ''Is this real life?'' he asks. ''Why is this happening to me?'' The video has been viewed 56 million times on YouTube, with 100,000 new views every day. In that time, David's adventure has become a remarkable marketing story - it has made money from YouTube. ''I'm the dad who posted 'David After Dentist,''' said Mr DeVore, wearing a shirt emblazoned with his son's face."
Facebook slander mum hits back at son [The Age] - I can only imagine how this will go down if it reaches the courts - it should be about whether Facebook is a publication or not, but I can't imagine that debate will be central: "The mother of a 16-year-old boy said she was only being a good mother when she locked him out of his Facebook account after reading he had driven home at 150km/h one night because he was mad at a girl. His response: a harassment complaint at the local courthouse. "If I'm found guilty on this it is going to be open season [on parents]," Denise New said. Ms New, of Arkadelphia, a small college town an hour south-west of Little Rock, said many of her son's postings did not reflect well on him, so, after he failed to log off the social networking site one day last month, she posted her own items on his account and changed his password to keep him from using it again. But her son claims what she posted was not true, and that she was damaging his reputation."
Son accuses mother of Facebook slander [The Age] - "A 16-year-old US boy is claiming in a criminal complaint that his mother slandered him on his Facebook page. Denise New is charged with harassment and her son - whose name has not been released - is asking that his mother be prohibited from contacting him. Authorities tell KATC-TV in the US that the boy lives with his grandmother, who has custodial rights. Denise New says she believes she has the legal right to monitor her son's activities online and that she plans to fight the claims."

Tagged as: abc, atwood, BBC, books, cloud, freemium, futureweb, internetos, journalism, legal, literature, monetize, murdoch, paywall, slander, socialnetworking, usa, viral, web101, web207 No Comments

25Mar/10

Digital Culture Links: March 25th 2010

Links for March 25th 2010:

The bosses who snoop on Facebook | Maxine Frances Roper [The Guardian] - I'm not sure I agree with this article, but the tensions between public and private spaces versus public and private as a technological setting are well articulated: "The practice of employers running internet searches on employees is now so widespread that employment agencies offer advice on "online reputation management". As one such site puts it: "Even a family recipe for picked gherkins can influence an employer's opinion of you." But just because it's possible for employers to unearth background information that once would have been the preserve of the most diligent East German spy, does that mean they should? There is a common belief that people who share information online are deliberately seeking attention, and therefore have it coming. Yet thinking that anyone with an online presence is out for publicity is as boneheaded as the idea that anyone who dresses up nicely is out to have indiscriminate sex."
How the internet will turn the world upside down [mUmBRELLA] - The *very* near future: "Talk about demonstrating the scary power of the internet. In this near-future science fiction story, blogger Tom Scott shares a scenario that could very easily become a reality. It centres around how one short video clip uploaded onto the web spreads across the world like wildfire. It results in a flash mob, which turns into a riot and then ultimately, several deaths. Now, keep in mind this is not a real story. But the incidences Scott mentions in his story have all occurred – just not at the same time. At least not yet."

(This clip would give Cory Doctorow a run for this money.)
Nestle's Facebook meltdown [Thought Gadgets] - A Nestle public relations disaster using social media. A good how NOT to guide.
Social Networking Rants Against Exes Turning Up In Court [Techdirt] - Another reminder that the web never forgets: "For many people, it's natural to treat social networking platforms as being the equivalent of just talking -- rather than being any sort of formal written communication. Of course, the big difference is that everything you type can be accurately saved forever -- and, potentially, used against you in court. Obviously what people say out loud can also be used in court, but in an argument between, say, a broken up couple, a yelling fight just becomes a screaming match. In the social networking world, it can become evidence. Two recent stories highlight this. The first, from Eric Goldman, is the "disturbingly humorous" transcript from the court concerning a blog post about a woman's ex-husband ..."

Tagged as: #nestlefail, ethics, fiction, internetfootprint, Nestle, net303, reputation, socialnetworking, web101, web309, webpresence 1 Comment

23Nov/09

Digital Culture Links: November 23rd 2009

Links for November 17th 2009 through November 23rd 2009:

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact [FT.com] - "Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry. The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage. However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine. News Corp and Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, declined to comment." (NewsCorp + Microsoft = B(e)ing Evil!) [Via]
Teachers warned off online Facebook contact with students [PerthNow] - "Teachers[in Western Australia] would be banned from contacting students on social-networking websites like Facebook or Myspace under proposed changes to their code of ethics. The move comes after the WA College of Teaching disciplinary committee reprimanded about 10 teachers in the past year for inappropriate cyber interaction with students. The behaviour included teachers sharing private photos with students and in some cases engaging in online sexual innuendo. WACOT's disciplinary committee chairwoman, Theresa Howe, said the code of ethics needed to be updated to specifically target inappropriate and over-friendly computer correspondence between students and teachers."`We're seeing an increase in it and it has to be specifically addressed,'' she said. `That should be in both the code of ethics and in professional development courses for teachers.''
Reporter Center's Channel [YouTube] - A fantastic resource to help up and coming reporters, journalists and media students think about how to go about, and improve, the way they do things. [Via mUmbrella]
BigPond pulls plug on Second Life [The Age] - "Telstra has decided to close its doors on Second Life, evicting the residents of its virtual BigPond Island and revoking their unmetered usage, in a move that has infuriated some subscribers. BigPond's presence will cease on December 16, signalling an end to its two-year “experiment” with Second Life, and residents of the swanky virtual Pond Estate have been given a month to relocate elsewhere. Second Life is a virtual world that enables members to build or trade in-world objects and interact through their "avatars". In its early days, new users flocked to the platform and organisations raced to set up a presence there to find new ways of engaging with their public, but the buzz surrounding virtual communities has since waned. According to a Second Life enthusiast, as many as 1600 users could be affected by BigPond's closure, many of whom are socially isolated or disabled and unable to afford to continue maintaining their presence on the virtual world without unmetered usage."

Tagged as: howto, journalism, murdoch, myspace, newscorp, Perth, reporter, socialnetworking, teachers, telstra, wa No Comments

2Nov/09

Digital Culture Links: November 2nd 2009

Links for November 2nd 2009:

How to Give Your Movie Away Free and Still Make Money [Jawbone.tv] - Some great ideas from Brian Newman about ways to both freely distribute and make money from feature films. (Thanks, Chuck.)
Teens Sue School Over Punishment For Racy MySpace Pics [Huffington Post] - "Two sophomore girls have sued their school district after they were punished for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace during their summer vacation. The American Civil Liberties Union, in a federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the girls, argues that Churubusco High School violated the girls' free speech rights when it banned them from extracurricular activities for a joke that didn't involve the school ... some legal experts say that in this digital era, schools must accept that students will engage in some questionable behavior in cyberspace and during off hours. "From the standpoint of young people, there's no real distinction between online life and offline life," said John Palfrey, a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "It's just life."" (It's called MYspace for a reason, methinks!)
Memories of Friends Departed Endure on Facebook [Facebook] - Facebook adds the ability to "memorialize" a Facebook page of someone who has passed away, but their loved ones wish their profile to remain online as a place for people to remember and reminisce about their lives. This feature has probably come along since Facebook got some bad press after suggesting people 'reconnect' with their deceased loved ones.[Via BBoing]

Tagged as: death, free, identity, myspace, socialnetworking, usa, web101, webpresence, youth No Comments

14Oct/09

Digital Culture Links: October 14th 2009

Links for October 12th 2009 through October 14th 2009:

MySpace Loses Market Share As Facebook, Twitter Gain [SMH] - "MySpace has lost more than half of its market share in the past year even though Australians have doubled the amount of time they spend on social networking sites in that period. New figures released by Nielsen this week revealed that Australians spent 1.6 million hours on social media sites in June this year, up from 800,000 hours a year earlier. The two major beneficiaries of the social media rush have been Facebook and Twitter, which, according to Nielsen, now have 8 million and 1.5 million unique Australian users, respectively. Conversely, MySpace has been hemorrhaging users in the past year, with its monthly Australian unique visitors reaching 2.381 million in August, Nielsen said. Separately, traffic monitoring company Experian Hitwise said the site's Australian market share dropped by 54 per cent in the year to October 10." (So ... notMySpace?)
Ajay Rochester threatens to sue Woman's Day magazine [The Australian] - TV host Ajay Rochester has used microblogging site Twitter to threaten to sue ACP Magazines' Woman's Day over a story claiming she was planning "a raft of cosmetic procedures". In a series of "tweets'', the first of which was posted at about 2am today Sydney time, LA-based Rochester writes: "Shame on you Woman's Day! Photo's are 7 months old and u didn't have permisson to use! Shame Shame Shame!'' Rochester also took aim at a Woman's Day reporter, saying: "Phil Koch - better get a lawyer son, better get a reaaaal good one! You had every op to do this with respect, integrity and honesty.'' However, this tweet was later deleted. [...] "Thank You Twitter for giving people like us the op to shout back at the injustices the media think they can just take with our lives." [she tweeted.] "Had many things said about me in the last year - mostly untrue twisted by people intent on hurting me. But this is THE WORST. No respect!''
Australian social media use doubles [Media Hunter] - "The amount of time spent on social media sites has nearly doubled from around 800,000 hours per month in August 2008 to 1.6 million hours per month in June 2009. Online measurement company Nielsen has found time spent on social media sites was just behind entertainment, which had just over 1.6 million hours per month. The number of Australians accessing social media sites has continued to grow in the past year, with Facebook’s unique audience surpassing eight million for the first time in August 2009. Twitter was up 979% to 1.5 million in August 2009."
4,000,000,000 [Flickr Blog] - Flickr just passed the 4 billion photos mark ... that's a lot!
No Video for Twitter and No Twitter for Miley [New TeeVee] - "Elsewhere in the intersection of Twitter and video, teen queen Miley Cyrus posted a rap on YouTube about why she shut down her Twitter account. “The reasons are simple, I started Tweeting ’bout pimples; I stopped living for moments, and started living for people.” OK, so I’ll agree it’s ridiculous to consider this a news story, but I have to admire Cyrus’ chops; she executes a fantastically low-fi explanatory music video complete with back-up dancers in shower stalls. With YouTube partner ads on some 1,750,000 views over the weekend..." (Her rationale for leaving Twitter seems an entirely reasonable one and quite quotable when trying to capture some people's concerns about Twitter as banal.)

Tagged as: banal, celebrity, everydaylife, myspace, socialnetworking, stats No Comments

8Oct/09

Digital Culture Links: October 8th 2009

Links for October 4th 2009 through October 8th 2009:

Angry Outbursts on Twitter Prompt Lengthy Legal Discussions [NYTimes.com] - "Times are tough for the “tweet before you think” crowd. Courtney Love was sued by a fashion designer after she posted a series of inflammatory tweets, one calling the designer a liar and a thief. A landlord in Chicago sued a tenant for $50,000 after she tweeted about her moldy apartment. And Demi Moore slapped back at Perez Hilton over a revealing photograph of the actress’s daughter. A growing number of people have begun lashing out at their Twitter critics, challenging the not-quite rules of etiquette on a service where insults are lobbed in brief bursts, too short to include the social niceties. Some offended parties are suing." (Yes, as with all social media, if you think things you post or tweet will ever go away ... they won't.)
Hotmail users advised to change passwords following information theft [Technology | guardian.co.uk] - "Hotmail users are being advised to change their passwords, after thousands of account details were posted online. A list containing more than 10,000 apparently genuine account names and passwords was posted to a website last week, where it remained until being spotted over the weekend by Microsoft security researchers. The list, which has been seen by the Guardian, appears to be genuine. It only contains usernames beginning with the letters A and B, but covers accounts ending in @hotmail.com, @msn.com and @live.com - three services owned by Microsoft which have more than 280m users worldwide. Although the stolen details have since been taken offline, copies of the list are already available elsewhere on the web - meaning that the details are potentially in the hands of criminals." (Putting the HOT back into hotmail ...)
Not a Nobel Headline [The Content Makers] - "What on earth is this shit? Australia gets its first female Nobel prize-winning scientist, and The Age runs with the following headline on the front page of its print edition: What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing with a Nobel Prize? Perhaps its meant to be all very po-mo and “oh look we’re so not sexist that we can actually pretend we are sexist in an ironical kind of way, ho ho”. And it is written off the first para, which says that this was what Elizabeth Blackburn was once asked by a family friend. But as a front page splash, it demeans the story to the level of cute human interest, rather than serious breakthrough. It leaves me thinking: What Are Nice Boys Like You Doing With a Newspaper?" (I couldn't agree more!)
The life cycle of social networking sites. [Democratic Underground] - Amusing visualisation of the life-cycle of social networking sites, from the 'New & Cool' through to the inevitable 'Cash Grabbing' phase. Facebook is probably between steps three and four!
Google Wave’s unproductive email metaphors [Scoblizer] - Robert Scoble on why Google Wave isn't really like email at all (which is good, apparently, because email isn't that productive!).

Tagged as: digitalliteracy, email, hotmail, identity, journalism, legal, microsoft, net303, news, nobelprize, security, sexism, socialmedia, socialnetworking, theage, visualisation No Comments

28Sep/09

Digital Culture Links: September 28th 2009

Links for September 22nd 2009 through September 28th 2009:

Creators' Corner [YouTube] - YouTube have just announced 'Creative Corner', a series of resources to help aspiring digital video creators learn better techniques, add special effects, and make the most of getting views on YouTube. Seems like a useful resource.
Online Aussies: ‘We won’t pay for news’ [mUmBRELLA] - "A large majority of Australians say they would not pay for online news, a survey suggests. According to a poll of more than 18,000 Australians released today by Pure Profile, only 5% said they would be willing to pay for “high quality articles”. A further 7% said they would be willing to pay if there was no advertising. 10% said they would not pay because the quality of online news was unimportant to them, while the vast majority – 78% – said they would simply refuse to pay for online news."
An Infusion of Another $100 Million Is Seen for Twitter [NYTimes.com] - "...the start-up appears to have chalked up another achievement. Twitter, which has no discernible revenue, is set to raise about $100 million of new funding that would value the company at around $1 billion, a person briefed on the company’s plans said Thursday. ... But Twitter’s cash infusion and exospheric valuation are not easily reduced to the level of the blind bets of past dot-com bubbles. In its three and a half years, Twitter has become a magnet for media attention, and its Web site now attracts 54 million visitors a month, according to comScore, the tracking firm. Along with Facebook, it is helping to remake the Web as a forum for the perpetual sharing of even the most trivial bits of information about people’s lives." (A billion dollars ... seems a lot to me.)
'Nigel the Crazy Noonga' Website Shut Down | Racism Outrage - "A website set up by a Perth student about a fictional Aboriginal character has been shut down and is being investigated by police amid racism claims. The website, which Radio 6PR reports was created by a 19-year-old Curtin University student, features audio excerpts of a character called "Nigel the crazy Noonga", who prank calls businesses and fast-food outlets with a fake Aboriginal accent. The portrayal of negative Aboriginal stereotypes has sparked outrage from the Aboriginal community. Craig Somerville, lecturer at the Curtin University Centre for Aboriginal Studies, told 6PR he believed the material on the website had crossed the line between humour and racism. "This is very nasty, rude and bad material," he said. "It's not only bad humour; it perpetuates a wrong judgment about Aboriginal people." Mr Somerville expressed his disappointment at claims the student who set up the website was from his university."
Ubiquitous Media, Rare Earths [sean cubitt's blog] - "... we act as if computing and network resources were unbounded. But materials, manufacture, use and recycling put boundaries round the materiality of internet and convergent media. The squalor and penury associated with extracting metals, building computers and recycling mobiles, TVs and digital devices are one half of a story which includes toxic waste, toxic working conditions, human waste from the maquilladoras, atnospheric and water pollution in the recycling villages of Africa and China, species and habitat loss . . . Like any other form of organisation, maintaining the negentropy of the internet requires vast amounts of energy, physical and human. It also requires materials that are becoming more strategic and costly by the minute. "
US proposes net neutrality rules [BBC NEWS | Technology] - The US has proposed new rules that would require internet firms to respect the principle of "network neutrality". The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said that "all web traffic should be treated equally". The new rules are intended to prevent firms throttling bandwidth-sapping web traffic such as streaming video. ... [The FCC] proposed two new rules to guide the FCC's approach to network neutrality. The first would prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from discriminating against bandwidth-intensive web-content and applications by slowing or blocking it. ... The second would mean that ISPs would have to be more transparent about how they manage network traffic. The two new rules join four previous guiding principles of the FCC, which state that all consumers must be able to access "lawful" content, applications, and services, and attach non-harmful devices to the network." (Network Neutrality FTW!)
In Facebook Fracas, Beauty School Goes After Student for Online Comments [The Wired Campus] - "A beauty school in Illinois is suing a student for his "defamatory" comments on a Facebook site that encouraged students to vent about their instructors. The Salon Professional Academy of Elgin, Ill., says Nicholas Blacconiere created a site called Tspa RobinHood that looked similar to TSPA Elgin's Facebook page because it used the academy's logo. The suit, filed in July, also says that he posted libelous comments about school officials on the site. Print-outs of the Facebook page included in the suit show several posts by "Tspa RobinHood." The site says it gives "the students a voice, because what happens when we need to be heard? Nobody gives a s___." It encourages students to send messages to the site, which it says will then be posted anonymously." (Reputation management: it's a game everyone can play!)

Tagged as: digitalmedia, digitalvideo, ecology, ethics, fcc, howto, internet, isp, monetize, net303, netneutrality, news, newspapers, paidcontent, racism, reputation, socialmedia, socialnetworking, sustainability, usa, webpresence No Comments

21Sep/09

Digital Culture Links: September 21st 2009

Links for September 18th 2009 through September 21st 2009:

RIP Facebook Beacon [Mashable] - "Facebook launched its ad platform “Beacon” in Nov 2007, hoping to revolutionize advertising by posting updates to your Facebook profile when you interacted with its partner sites. This week Facebook said that it has settled a class-action lawsuit against the product, agreed to shut it down completely, and will establish a $9.5 million “settlement fund” to fund initiatives related to online privacy. ... Facebook Beacon was a system that posted your activity on third-party websites – Blockbuster, Gamefly, Overstock.com and more – back to your Facebook profile. Privacy advocates rallied against it, however, arguing that data was being sent without the users’ explicit permission. The situation worsened after a report claimed that Beacon was collecting data from partner sites regardless of whether users were Facebook members ..." (Beacon remains one of those most teachable examples of Facebook's privacy woes, but I'm delighted with the idea of money being spent privacy initiatives.)
Nigeria 'offended' by sci-fi film [BBC NEWS | Africa] - "Nigeria's government is asking cinemas to stop showing a science fiction film, District Nine, that it says denigrates the country's image. Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC's Network Africa programme that she had asked the makers of the film, Sony, for an apology. She says the film portrays Nigerians as cannibals, criminals and prostitutes. An actor from the film said that it was not just Nigerians who were portrayed as villains. ... But Mr Khumbanyiwa said Nigerians in the cast did not seem worried by the portrayal of their country. He suggested that the film, which depicts people wanting to eat aliens to gain the superhuman powers, should not be taken too literally. "It's a story, you know," he said. "It's not like Nigerians do eat aliens. Aliens don't even exist in the first place."" (Well said, Mr Khumbanyiwa, well said.)
Welcome to the (anonymous) rabbit hole [Unleashed] - Mark Pesce's playful take on the largely unsuccessful attempts by Anonymous to take down the ACMA and Australian Prime Minster's websites on 09/09/09/
VICTORY: FCC to Mandate Net Neutrality for the Web [Mashable] - "The Federal Communications Commission has been in the middle of it, as it has outlined loose net neutrality guidelines in the past. But according to The Wall Street Journal, the FCC is about to propose definitive rules that could have major repercussions for the entire web. The new rules, expected to be announced Monday by Julius Genachowski, the FCC Chairman, will outline requirements for ISPs to treat all traffic on the Internet equally. This means that Comcast can’t decide that Google gets less bandwidth and Microsoft/Bing (Bing) gets more for any reason (i.e. one pays for preferential treatment). It’s also expected that the net neutrality rules will apply to wireless services, meaning they would be in effect for Internet data via your phone and 3G networks. The impact of this cannot be understated, especially as iPhones and other smart phones make the mobile web a major part of our lives." (Excellent!)
Google slams Murdoch plan to charge for online news [The Age] - "Publishers of general news would find it hard to charge for their content online because too much free content is available, the chief executive of Google said. Speaking to a group of British broadcasting executives via video link, Eric Schmidt said he could, however, imagine niche providers of content such as business news succeeding in this area. Schmidt was responding to an announcement by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch that he could start charging for content online. "In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity," he said. "So my guess is for niche and specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.""
Meme Analysis: Kanye Interrupts, the Internet (and Obama) Listens [NewTeeVee] - Everything you ever wanted to know about the Kayne West interrrupts Taylor Swift meme ...